Daily Quiz #24 UPSC Prelims Marathon – November 28, 2019

Explanation: The NDCP-2018 envisions supporting India’s transition to a digitally empowered economy and society by fulfilling the information and communications needs of citizens and enterprises by establishment of a ubiquitous, resilient and affordable digital communications infrastructure and services. The ‘Customer focused’ and ‘application driven’ NDCP-2018 shall lead to new ideas and innovations, after the launch of advanced technology such as 5G, IOT, M2M, etc. which shall govern the telecom sector of India.
Objectives: The key objectives of the policy are:
•Broadband for all;
•Creating four million additional jobs in the Digital Communications sector;
•Enhancing the contribution of the Digital Communications sector to 8% of India’s GDP from ~ 6% in 2017;
•Propelling India to the Top 50 Nations in the ICT Development Index of ITU from 134 in 2017;
•Enhancing India’s contribution to Global Value Chains; and
•Ensuring Digital Sovereignty.
These objectives are to be achieved by 2022.

Explanation: The Scheme has been initiated with the vision to empower at least one person per household with crucial digital literacy skills by 2020. This is expected to touch the lives of more than 250 million individuals over the next few years. PMGDISHA is an effort to complement government’s vision to transform one from each household as digitally literate. The project aims at helping adults with low technological literacy develop the skills they need to interact in an increasingly digital world.

Explanation: They are formed when a gas such as methane gets trapped in well-defined cages of water molecules forming crystalline solids. It is a solid ice-like form of water that contains gas molecules in its molecular cavities. Natural gas hydrates occur on continental margins and shelves worldwide from Polar Regions to the tropics. Gas hydrate reservoirs are generally associated with biologically rich cold seep ecosystems at the seafloor. Cold seeps are locations where hydro-carbon rich fluid seeps up from below the sea floor, often as methane or hydrogen sulfide.

Explanation: Prime Minister Research Fellows (PMRF): It is a public-private partnership (PPP) between Science & Engineering Research Board (SERB) and Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) which aims to improve the quality of research by attracting the best talents across the country and reduce brain drain.

Explanation: The India-based Neutrino Observatory (INO) is now in the feasibility study stage. More than 50 scientists from about 15 Institutes and Universities in India have come together to form the National Neutrino Collaboration group (NNCG). This group has the task of detailing various aspects related to INO activity and come up with a proposal for an underground neutrino laboratory. An underground neutrino facility in India offers the unique possibility of locating a neutrino detector near the Earths equator. This can have some very interesting consequences for solar neutrinos which would then pass through the core of the Earth in their passage to the detector from the Sun at night. The INO collaboration has now decided on a site in Bodi West Hills(BWH) region near Pottipuram village in Theni district of Tamilnadu (110KM from the temple town of Madurai).